Challenging for Equity above all

Petition

Today I came across two articles, once again calling into question the behaviour of Politicians and Government Departments when using statistics; it is clear from these that “Once again, DWP has shown itself to be a master in statistics manipulation and in the use of selective figures” this was on sanctions; and on pay and living costs “an act of statistical trickery to change the landscape of pay bargaining in the UK for the worse.”

This persistent misuse of data and the ensuing Spin’ fed to the media by the likes of IDS, is precisely what we have been saying this for the past 2 years; and it is the reason for our petition TO: KATHRYN HUDSON PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR STANDARDS to :

“Use the full Powers of the Commission and investigate Iain Duncan Smith Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for his regular use of untruths and the persistent deception misleading of The House of Commons, Select Committees and the Media”

If this isn’t enough to convince you it is time for the people to respond, the Guardian’s editorial today produced their view on Welfare Reform – their verdict “In Dire Straits” ; this is summarised with the opinion “Mr Duncan Smith’s department is in clear breach of commitments it has given, and the sanction is upheld“.

With only 80 days left to the Election, Time is Running Out‘; Debbie & I have be slogging at our Truth Campaign for almost two years!! And our latest stage is a petition to Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards demanding Iain (Duncan) Smith be investigated for his Lies.

I say Time is running out because who knows if IDS will actually Be a Politician come May 7 and, even if he is re-elected, will he be Minister for Work & Pensions after this date?

This is why it is imperative we get as many signatures as possible, currently 5,346 people have signed but we need many more than this, to even get mentioned in the press.

So, this is a plea to everyone that reads this, if you haven’t yet signed, please do…but I guess more importantly, please make it your mission to get at least one other person to sign as well.

This is possibly our LAST Chance to hold IDS to account – so if you agree with us that, He MUST ANSWER for the plethora of policies and reforms that have damaged our lives and been responsible for the Deaths of others; and If you believe He, is behind the raft of LIES spouted in the media…

JOIN US and make sure the TRUTH petition gains enough signatories to get noticed

In this my last post before the festivities kick in I want to take a look at a quick overview of the Truth Campaign and our reasons for pursuing it.

It all began on April 14 2013, when Debbie Sayers and I wrote an open letter, to Esther McVey regarding her persistent misuse of facts and statistics, we sent this with over 800 signatures, including 4 MPs, a month later. On the back of this, we started our first petition (27/5/13) to the Work & Pensions Committee demanding they :Hold IDS to account for his use of statistics.

We eventually received a response from the DWP correspondence team to our letter, which failed to even acknowledge the questions we had asked, but she did reply to Michael Meacher and Tim Loughton MPs, who had supported our letter with the same reply.

By June 12 our first petition had hit the magic 100,000 signatures, and between then and November, we played tag with IDS as he kept hiding from the Select Committee, missing him when we submitted our petition in November to Liz Kendall & Kate Green MPs; but eventually on December 11 2013 he ran out of excuses to attend.

After a long break, it was in May this year Debbie & I decided to start stage 2 of our campaign, particularly in response to the Governments response to the recommendations of 3rd report from Work & Pensions select committee – use of DWP statistics; and this determined our next steps.

As today sees the nights slowly begin to shorten again, and the festive season is here, with its expectations of happiness and hope; it seems an optimum time to revisit our journey so far. It is especially pertinent as these feelings are irreconcilable with the ever growing tales of horror, resulting from the DWP’s and indeed Governments false Austerity Agenda, and the ongoing persecution of the poorest, most vulnerable people in our society.

If you share our outrage at the injustices forced upon disabled, unemployed, vulnerable people, please sign, support and SHARE the story of the TRUTH Campaign and together in 2015 the people will Demand IDS is Investigated for his Lies and for the Damage done by them.

This is OUR Wish for Christmas, Yuletide and most importantly for Justice & TRUTH.

Iain Duncan Smith has knowingly and deliberately lied to parliament. He is a liar as can so easily be proven. I make no bones either about calling him a liar and a deliberate and knowing one and I refuse to use euphemisms such as being economical with the truth and the like – he is a liar as the figures below highlight and in just a simple 10 minute blog using official figures that he produces!!

Under-occupancy Penalty

Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD): What estimate he made of the potential savings to the public purse that would arise from implementation of the under-occupancy penalty; and what estimate he has made of the amount saved to date by that implementation. [906482]

The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith): Before our reforms, the taxpayer had been paying for 820,000 spare rooms. To date, the policy has saved about £830 million from the housing benefit bill, and the estimated savings remain the same: approximately £500 million a year in 2013-14 and 2014-15. Those figures have been ratified by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

The bedroom tax (alleged) saving.

The bedroom tax has official figures published by the Secretary of State Work & Pensions – yes that’s IDS himself who publishes the official figures every quarter. The most recent figures were published in November 2014 and cover the period up to August 2014 and this official data says:

(a) How many households are affected (471,887), and

(b) What the average weekly bedroom tax figure is (£14.92), and

(c) There are 52.18 weeks in every year (365.25 days divided by 7)

So when we multiiply (a) 471,887 households at (b) £14.92 per week and then by (c) 52.18 we get the ABSOLUTE THEORETICAL MAXIMUM SAVING and that figure is (a) x (b) x (c) =

£368.114 million in a full year or £7.079 million per week.

IDS claims A saving of £830m so far as at yesterday. The absolute maximum (see below) is £615.87 million so IDS has stated a figure AT LEAST 35% MORE THAN IS THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE

IDS claims the full first two years saving to be £1 billion. Yet the absolute maximum saving is £736.228 million and again 35% MORE THAN IS THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE

Comment

Take away the DHP costs which for the first two years for bedroom tax are £115 million and we see the maximum possible saving is £621m over two full years (£736m – £115m)

So IDS has told parliament that the ‘saving’ is 61 PER CENT HIGHER THAN IT CAN POSSIBLY BE

Yes he is lying and knowingly lying through his teeth.

Note for absolute clarity if many social housing tenants have left and their place taken by private tenants it could be possible to save housing benefit in this way. Yet so few have been able to downsize and even if they are all private tenants moving into social housing and thus saving on the HB bill then just the legal costs IDS has paid out to take the recent Upper Tribunal case more than outweigh any savings alone.

Then we have so many other expenditure costs associated with the bedroom tax such as increased homelessness and increased number of bedroom tax appeals each one will cost about £1500 to the MoJ bill that government pays out and so many other expenditure costs. But let’s forget all that complexity as to whether the additional costs are borne by local government and instead keep this so simple that even a lying buffoon like IDS can understand them.

Once again I’m finding it difficult to sit down and write, I’m finding myself inundated with the appalling tales of life in the UK today; this week I’ve internally wept (there is a reason why only internally, but that is a tale for another day) as I read of IDS laughing as a rape victim was forced to defend her right to feel safe in her own home as it was debated a PMQ. I Squealed when the DWP refuted hard evidence of people using foodbanks due to Benefit issues and this fury continued as the blogs I follow come in to my inbox daily with stories of people suffering or even dying.

Today we all got up to, unless of you stayed up to watch, the news the UKIP have their second MP. I freely admit I have a problem with this; I really do not understand why anyone would want a Government of a) the same as now but worse or b) a Right Wing Government many of our grandparents went to war to fight?

Why oh Why are people, often those detrimentally affected by the Policies and behaviour of the Coalition, not supporting the fight back?

As l regular readers will know I’ve spent my life, campaigning against injustice, prejudice and discrimination; I’ve also been responsible along with Debbie Sayers for the #TruthCampaign – our efforts to have Iain Duncan Smith forced to answer for the discriminatory Policies of the Welfare Reform Act.

Last year over 500.000 people signed to have him held to account by the select committee, and he was; now we want more we are demanding Kathryn Hudson, the Parliamentary Commissioner For Standards, investigate him for persistently misleading both Parliament and the Public, But…for some reason getting the signatures is proving problematic, I’m unsure if it is because people don’t get why it is important, they think its not worth doing or they just aren’t bothered?

Whatever the reasons people are not signing IDS – TIME TO STOP THE LIES, I will keep pushing; I believe, an investigation of IDS would prove a catalyst for ensuring both the Tories and Labour to rethink their proposals for their Election Manifesto. If we can show Ministers will be held personally responsible for the fallout of discriminatory, unfair and downright deadly Policies, I doubt they’d be as keen to continue to blame us.

If you agree with anything here, please continue to share our petition and let’s take some our of power back.

Who Will Watch the Watchmen?

An Open Letter to John Bercow

I was incredibly naive when I started campaigning for the rights of people with long term health conditions and disabilities.

I believed passionately in democracy and that here in the UK, we had one of the best political systems in the world.

I had always believed there were strict rules governing MPs and that they were held to account by customs and conventions that had served us for centuries. Sadly, that naivety is long gone.

Over the last 4 years, I’ve learnt that democracy is merely an illusion. I’ve learnt that a politician can do or say virtually anything he or she likes and no-one will do anything about it at all.

In the case of Iain Duncan-Smith, we have seen the results of a failure to govern the governors as never before. He has lied – not “misled” or “misdirected” – to parliament repeatedly. He has lied about who is affected by his “reforms”. He has lied about who is protected from them. He has lied about how much they have saved the treasury and he has lied about their efficacy. He has lied about the level of support for his changes and lied about the timescales of their delivery.

The results of his lies are clear for all to see. Vulnerable people he promised to support go hungry or are left without care or security. Nearly a million people have been driven to foodbanks. Homelessness has risen, the benefits bill has risen and the housing bill has risen. Sanctions have soared – over 500% in the case of those too unwell to work – and a fiscal black hole of billions is becoming apparent at the treasury as every one of his major schemes grinds to a halt. Universal credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Personal Independence payments, all have failed, leaving millions stuck in limbo.

Yet still Mr Duncan-Smith lies and still his lies go unchallenged.

This petition https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/investigate-ids-for-lies calls on parliament to investigate those lies and hold a full and transparent enquiry into his conduct. He has even repeatedly bullied the media not to hold him to account, can he bully you too? Is there no-one prepared to challenge this man and stop his inhumanity?

Campaigners will never rest until the scale of this man’s failures are clearly exposed to the public. Until his dishonesty is fully revealed. He will not be reshuffled or sent quietly away to “spend more time with his family”. No matter how long it takes, Iain Duncan-Smith will be shown as the cruel bully he is.

You could choose to make sure that happens sooner rather than later, before more thousands of lives are ruined by his incompetence and lies. You have the power to restore at least some of the democracy we have lost. But make no mistake, now or in the future, it will happen. I and many like me will make sure of it.

Earlier this week Debbie and I started the latest stage in the TRUTH campaign, and launched a petition demanding Kathryn Hudson Parliamentary Commissioner For Standards investigate #IDS for persistently misleading both Parliament and the Public.

There are two primary reasons for our campaign; the ongoing misuse of statistics is not only a breach of the code of conduct #IDS is obliged as a Member of Parliament to abide by, but they result in the dangerous and inappropriate Policies disabled people are suffering from. The raft of Policies forming the Welfare Reform Act have been built on these distorted truths and the consequences are as numerous as the Polices:

we’ve witnessed an unknown number of disabled people DYING either through Suicide or other means directly attributed to the reform of Social Security

We’ve experienced four years with a vast number of the 11 million of us, surviving an increase in poverty, with the financial cuts resulting in an average loss of f £4,410 per person – 9 times more than most other people.

If any of the above offends, upsets or concerns you, might I remind you these real life issues are ALL the responsibility of one man Iain Duncan Smith, as the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has overall responsibility for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP); I’m not suggesting he personally designed the policies but he DID sign then off, he DOES regularly defend them with Lies, and it is this behaviour we are challenging.

Thoughts on the crossroads of law, politics and society - for when 140 characters just won't do. This blog contains general information and commentary on legal matters. It is not intended to provide legal advice. This blog discusses the law in England, unless otherwise stated.